Let’s face it: going toe to toe with corporations to attract and retain top talent isn’t a fair fight — but it’s one most higher education institutions know well.

“Pittsburgh has become very competitive,” said Brock Sizer, HRIS manager at the University of Pittsburgh, adding that his city’s rise in popularity has attracted corporations like Uber and Google. “We have to compete with a lot of other organizations that can usually pay more.”

To overcome this challenge, the University of Pittsburgh is overhauling their staff classification system, looking at compensation packages, benefits and work-life balance, to more accurately benchmark to the market and understand how to stay competitive, while minimizing tuition inflation. It’s a major undertaking, made possible by the use of PeopleAdmin Positions, the position management solution designed specifically for higher education’s needs.

“Positions houses all of our titles, classifications and job descriptions — it’s the source of everything for the project so far,” Brock said. “Positions keep us going, but also helps us note where we’re being held back. It’s so efficient, I think our departments take it for granted.”

Like the University of Pittsburgh, more than 700 other colleges and universities have discovered a secret weapon in overcoming their unique challenges: partnering with PeopleAdmin.

“PeopleAdmin knows the higher education pain points,” said NeeCee Cornish, director of enterprise database & integrations at the Western University of Health Sciences. “If you go with a different talent management solution provider, and they don’t have that higher education experience, there’s so much they just won’t know. And I don’t want to be the one to teach them.”

“The customers understood that their product was built for them, and they appreciated those nuances,” said Erika Blacutt, partner at Hobson & Company, who conducted more than 20 interviews with PeopleAdmin’s higher education solutions users. “They told me multiple times that PeopleAdmin captured the subtleties and uniqueness of higher education, which was why they were able to use it so effectively — something they didn’t find in other places.”

“I’ve partnered with PeopleAdmin at every institution that I’ve been at, and they have a time-tested and proven solution for higher ed,” said Brian K. Dickens, Ph.D., vice president of human resources at Ithaca College. “Once you start thinking about a new talent management system, you can’t have that conversation without PeopleAdmin at the forefront.”